


interlude

by OnyxSphynx



Series: newmann one-shots [42]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: M/M, The Drift (Pacific Rim)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 01:30:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18436229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnyxSphynx/pseuds/OnyxSphynx
Summary: Newt’s experience when they Drift.





	interlude

**Author's Note:**

> anon asked: “Do you think you could write something with this? "You're not dead, Newton. Come home."”

blue—

blue blue blue blue blue he’s surrounded by blue it’s seeping _into_ his skin under his skin it _is_ his skin but it’s not _his_ skin—

eyes his vision is doubling tripling everything’s a shade of electric white-blue—

_Stop_ he screams with a voice that vibrates the very fabric of existence _stop I can’t—_

I who is he what is he where—

flashes memories of them him it we us me I one many all—

_Hermann_ —

“—Hermann!” he shouts, and it all—

stops. Turns from electric, white-hot, burning blue to black; the void. Space: infinite and empty but still so full. Dark.

He hold out a hand. In the black, he can’t see anything, but he senses the limb, feels the movement of it, the matter it displaces to get there. “Anyone?” he calls, voice silent in the—

_Drift_.

—is harmony, symbiosis; the melding of the minds, _but_ —

“Hermann?” he calls again, the comforting blackness suddenly frightening. “Hermann, where are you?”

Because he was there, just a second ago, he was with Newt, he was Newt, they were one, but now he’s—

_alone_.

“Why?” he asks, shrinking in on himself. “Why am I—why am I alone?”

_when are you not?_

It’s a sound that’s not a sound—a thought he feels in the very fibres of his being. It dwarfs him. 

_when are you not?_

“I—that’s not true—” he protests weakly, “I—no, that’s not—that’s _not_ —”

_so, then, when are you not?_

Words fail him; his mind screeches to a halt, unable to answer the question. He swallows. “Hermann—”

_you are_

_alone_

“I—I’m alone,” he breathes. “I’m all _alone_.” The realisation of that is sluggish, like a viscous liquid slowly transferring from one container to another. He’s alone, surrounded only by the void and his own thoughts.

“That’s— _impossible_.” But he knows it’s true—there’s nothing in existence except for him. All around him, the heavy presence of nothingness presses against all of his senses, blinding and choking and smothering—

“…I’m dead.” It’s the only explanation, but if he’s dead, then—then—

He drags in a gasping, panicked breath. “I can’t be dead—where’s Hermann? Where’s _Hermann_ —”

The blackness bends and twists, dragging him along with the rushing current.

_you’re—_

_—not_

_dead—_

_—you’re not dead, newton. come home_

He jolts out of the Drift, shuddering, blood dripping from his nose. Hermann throws up in a discarded toilet and Newt gives him the handkerchief he most certainly didn’t steal from a certain physicist.

They rush into the helicopter, the wind whipping through their hair, stinging their cheeks, and Hermann’s hand creeps into his. Quietly, almost too quiet to be heard over the roar of the chopper’s blades, Newt asks, “Was it you?”

“Was what me?”

“Something—I was caught in the Drift,” he swallows, rememberers the pressing darkness. “I was—in space. Alone. And then I heard—”

“You’re not dead, Newton. Come home,” the other finishes, looking surprised. “Oh. I suppose it was me, then.”

Newt grips his hand tightly. “Thank you,” he says, and the smile Hermann gives him is small, tired, bloody; genuine.


End file.
